Thailand’s anti-coup “Red Shirts” on Thursday cancelled a religious ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of a deadly military crackdown, accusing security forces of surrounding a temple where the memorial was due to take place.
By AFP | AFP – Thu, Apr 9, 2015
Thailand’s anti-coup “Red Shirts” on Thursday cancelled a religious ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of a deadly military crackdown, accusing security forces of surrounding a temple where the memorial was due to take place.
Members of the street movement loyal to ousted Thai premiers Yingluck and Thaksin Shinawatra had planned a Buddhist service Friday for scores of Red Shirt supporters who died during a crackdown on their months-long protest in Bangkok in the spring of 2010.
But on Thursday Red Shirt chairman Jatuporn Prompan said the ceremony had been cancelled after police and soldiers surrounded the Kerd Karn Udom temple just outside the capital.
“Even though relatives have explained it is a merit-making religious ceremony, police and soldiers are not permitting them to hold it,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.
“Therefore this year the entire merit-making ceremony is cancelled.”
A junta spokesman could not be immediately reached.
But the move comes after a series of warnings by Thailand’s generals, who seized power from Yingluck’s elected government last May, against any gathering to commemorate the event — one of the bloodiest chapters in the kingdom’s turbulent political history.
Since it seized power the army has repeatedly ordered the Red Shirts not to assemble, briefly sweeping key leaders into detention in the days following the coup, closing radio stations and monitoring their communications.
Jatuporn had earlier promised to downsize the event and urged authorities to allow the relatives of the dead to attend a Buddhist ‘merit making’ ceremony at the temple.
His comments came after Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan — a retired general who held the same government post in 2010 — urged Red Shirts to hold a private memorial only.
“Many military were also killed and we don’t have to hold a memorial,” he said Wednesday.
– Military chokehold –
In March 2010 thousands of Thaksin’s red-shirted loyalists occupied key intersections in central Bangkok, demanding fresh elections to replace the then pro-military appointed government.
The first deadly military response came on April 10 followed by larger crackdowns between May 13 and 19 that left scores dead including many unarmed demonstrators, two foreign journalists and several soldiers.
Thai junta chief and premier Prayut Chan-O-Cha was a top military officer at the time and is often described as the architect of the crackdown.
Prayut lifted martial law last week only to replace it with sweeping new security measures retaining the military’s chokehold over the country.
Political gatherings of more than five people are still banned while the military still has the power to arrest, detain and prosecute people for national security crimes or those who fall foul of the country’s strict royal defamation laws.
Rights groups have argued the new rules, issued under the controversial Section 44 of the interim constitution, grant more powers to Prayut including greater censorship over the media.
The move drew swift condemnation from the European Union, the United States and the United Nation’s human rights chief who described the new powers as “even more draconian”.